Microsoft has announced that the Outlook.com email service has come out of preview. The service was launched last year and has witnessed over 60 million consumers moving across to the new email service. David Law, Director of Product Management, notes that the team has implemented a number of improvements through lots of feedback received from users.

As well as officially launching the service, Microsoft will be kicking off a large marketing campaign worldwide to promote Outlook.com as a perfect email provider. There's a lot of confidence here too as the team will be upgrading millions of Hotmail accounts to the new Outlook.com experience. We've previously looked at Outlook.com with a number of helpful tutorials and tips on how to better use the service.

Microsoft introduced Outlook.com as a radical improvement to Hotmail and Windows Live. The 60 million user marker counts people who have signed in several times a month via the web browser, email client or smartphone. For the millions of Hotmail users who will be upgraded to Outlook.com, the Hotmail email address, password, messages, folders, contacts, rules, vacation responses and more will all remain the same.

The team expects all Hotmail accounts to be using Outlook.com by this summer - you can kick off the process today by simply logging into Outlook.com. There's also no requirement to upgrade to a outlook.com email address. It'll be interesting to see how Microsoft markets the Outlook email service as well as other cloud services, Windows and Windows Phone.

The refresh is running alongside the Messenger to Skype upgrade, which will be underway this coming April. We've already witnessed Microsoft rebrand itself, and 2013 will be the year when it simplifies its online services. Are you using Outlook.com? What do you make of the email service?

Calendar is long overdue. I am still using the old interface because it is consistent with the calendar. Going out of preview without a calendar would be like releasing a major phone os update and not having the same sync functionality as the old version of the os. Who would do that?

Thats for pining it to start like normal. I think they want an actual Windows 8 tile (as seen in theend of the video) (possible) with livetile support (not possible, though they could just use the built in mail app).
If they want a Windows 8 tile, they need to "pin to start" in the Modern UI version of Internet Explorer, through the menu (wrench icon, i believe it was). That will make a windows 8 tile. Though its still a static tile. no live updates

You don't need to change your email address to x@outlook.com if you don't want to, although you may certainly do so if you wish. The only thing that is required is that you use the new interface when you log in over the web. If you use a desktop client or only get your email through your phone, nothing will change.

the easiest way for that is to create an alias out of your old hotmail. that way you can still have your old email still recieve the stuff you used too but have the new outlook for anything youll do in the future. my suggestion is go to anything that your subscribed too and switch the primary emails to outlook slowly so you can switch fully to outlook. If you so wish.

Sometimes I do it through the web, I believe they changed the look of hotmail to match outlook. I use the mail app on w8 and the mail tile of wp7.x so as long as it isn't necessary, will do as suggested and leave it along.

Dear Microsoft. Why in all that is holy can I not sync my exchange or local Outlok Contact folder with Outlook.com? I know I've committed a mortal sin by having several thousand Contacts, I understand there is a work-around for sinners like myself, but why will to not forgive my transgression of actually using the "Notes" field in my Contacts? Outlook.com import of Contacts fails whenever an "illegal" character is used there. Apparently the alphabet is now illegal.

And don't tell me to use One Note instead. Its not linked to either my Contacts or Outlook, requiring that I launch a separate program in order to see the information I have on a Contact, and besides, you've never released a tool to transfer the information from my Contact Notes to One Note! All these poorly implemented incompatibilities are creating a barrier between Outlook and Outlook.com that will slow adoption rates and drive Customers away.
Get Your Sync Together!

More help please! I can't seem to find out how to do this SUCESSFULLY. Please understand that a manual method isn't going to help me much, I have over 3000 Cotnacts and have ben using the Contact's Notes field since the 80's so there's a lot of information there. Copy/Paste for individual contacts won't be practical.
There are several methods that Microsoft tells you to try but that don't work because of undocumented limitatins that have rendered them useless.

A while back when Outlook.com was first announced, I jumped on a good email address for myself not knowing I should have instead created an alias in my existing Microsoft account. Does anyone know how I can send/receive email from account #2 from within account #1? I tried to add a send/receive account but it tells me I need to link it instead. Tried to link, but I still don't have the option to send/receive email from the linked account.

That's really annoying. It's been 9 months and they still haven't fixed the problem? I really like the new email address I set up, but I've got everything associated with my original Live ID including a 25gb skydrive account. This is the main thing keeping me from switching to Outlook. Very maddening that they haven't taken care of it yet.

Love Outlook.com. The team behind the UI should have made the desktop-mode of Windows 8! Right now the ugly aero desktop-mode just looks weird next to modern apps. Not to mention the desktop-mode will always remain the 'productivity' mode for many companies. So Microsoft shouldnt threat it as just a thing of the past. In a way its like DOS-mode on Windows XP but it wont be replaced for years to come so they should make its UI fit more with the rest of Windows 8.

I must say I was very unwilling to change from the traditional Hotmail look to Outlook, but when I tried it I actually really liked it. It's also very useful with the integration it does with WP. So I do recommend the change.

I am unfortunalty stuck with Yahoo Mail. I cannot connect my Yahoo email account to Oulook.com unless I pay Yahoo and become a Plus scriber for $20 a year so POP is activated for my account. I'm so sad ...

I have two yahoo accounts forwarding to my outlook.com, and the e-mails arrive within 30 seconds for me (I haven't tested how fast it truly is, could be instantanously)
I'm sorry to say that it's quite a while ago I made my yahoo do this, so I can't remember how to set it up, but it wasn't hard, try and look around. best of luck!